THE APPLE 1980

The BIG Science Fiction Romantic Rock Opera of the '80s

                                                                           Movie poster tagline

It comes as a bit of a surprise to me when I realize that after so many years heralding the relative merits of often inarguably awful movies (and we're talking MAJOR bombs, mind you); this piece on Cannon Films’ dystopian glam-rock musical The Apple will be my first hate-watch movie post.

What do I mean by hate-watch? Well, when it comes to bad movies, whether unabashed camp-fests like Girls Town, Kitten With a Whip, and The Oscar, or pedigreed stinkers like Audrey Hepburn's Bloodline or Barbra Streisand's A Star is Born, there’s not a single terrible film I’ve disparaged and poked fun at on these pages for which I don’t also harbor genuine feelings of affection. Even if that affection is merely gratitude for all the hours of enjoyment they've given me at their expense.

Call it an affinity, call it a connection…, but if I'm going to watch a movie for the sole purpose of laughing at its ineptitude and wrongheadedness, I have to have at least a tiny soft spot for it in my heart. Otherwise, the experience feels only mean-spirited and snarky.
I call it hate-watching when I'm masochistically drawn to watch a movie that, for whatever reason, I already know I don't like all that much. What I expect to get out of such an experience is hard to parse out, but I'm gonna guess that self-flagellation, schadenfreude, and misanthropy play into it.
All of the above and more are to be found in schlockmeister director Menahem Golan's notorious 1980 musical misfire, The Apple.

"First you sell it, THEN you make it. That's marketing!"
The line of dialogue above is from The Apple, a movie set in the world of music. But it could just as easily stand as the business model for Cannon Films under the auspices of the producing/directing team of Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus. A company that never met a misleading ad it didn't like. There's a very good chance this trade ad began appearing (cobbed from the wishful-thinking likeness of John Travolta's 1978 Time Magazine cover) long before a screenplay was written or a dime of funding secured for this $8-10 million miscalculation

The Apple, if known at all, is widely considered one of the worst musicals ever made. A credential it exhaustively earns and defends in every sequin-encrusted, spandex-encased frame. But movies dismissed by the masses invariably end up as prime candidates for cult adoration, and The Apple is no exception (although it took some 24 years to bring that about). Today, The Apple is enthusiastically embraced for the very things that, in 1980, brought the World Premiere audience at the Montreal Film Festival to its feet in a chorus of boos. The Apple swiftly disappeared when the film's limited American release yielded a groundswell of less demonstrative but no less unfavorable critical response. So few people saw it that over time, The Apple's must-be-seen-to-be-believed awfulness became the stuff of myth.

Despite my fondness for cinema dogs and movie turkeys (fittingly, The Apple's L.A. release was a week before Thanksgiving), I failed to catch The Apple during its initial theatrical release. Not because I accidentally missed it... for some reason, I just had no interest in seeing it. Which is grossly out of character for me. A guy who dotes on disco, is mad for musicals, and who ordinarily can't get enough of craptacular cinema. 

Catherine Mary Stewart as Bibi Phillips

George Gilmour as Alphie

Vladek Sheybal as Mr. Boogalow

Grace Kennedy as Pandi

Allan Love as Dandi

Ray Shell as Shake

The Apple is a pseudo-Biblical Faust allegory set in a hyper-futuristic vision of America in 1994 that frequently betrays its true setting: Berlin, 1979. Taking significant liberties with the Book of Genesis, the film presents us with an unreasonable facsimile of Adam and Eve hailing from Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan (a colorless folksinging duo with the Teletubby names of Alphie & Bibi) tempted by fame and lured into the Mephistophelian clutches of one Mr. Boogalow, the head of an entertainment megacorporation known by the acronym BIM (Boogalow’s International Music).

But much like Disney or The Kardashians, BIM has very little actual interest in entertainment itself, its primary interest being global mind control and the deployment of its far-reaching pop culture tentacles for world domination. Mr. Boogalow's fiendish plan--as far as I could make out, anyway---has something to do with weakening people's will through the forced exposure to tacky, Vegas-style glitter-rock-cum-disco revues performed by substandard talent. Enter Alphie & Bibi. 

The Bland Leading The Bland
Flavorless heterosexual folk music in a Eurovision-style face-off against spicy, gay disco  

Boogalow schemes to hornswoggle the naive, soporific duo into a restrictive recording contract, replacing his current BIM Stars Dandi (Allan Love) and Pandi (Grace Kennedy). After the high-minded Alphie has a premonition of disaster (the film’s premiere, no doubt), he refuses to sign with Boogalow but is unsuccessful in persuading the soft-headed...I mean, soft-hearted Bibi to do the same. So, while Alphie beats as hasty a retreat as his extraordinarily tight pants will allow, Bibi signs away her soul for stardom, a crimped hair makeover, and a pair of perilously high, pointy-toed thigh boots.  

I've Seen the Future, and it's Starburst Filter Lenses
The Apple frequently looks as though it were shot by a film school student given
an assortment pack of camera filter lenses they're dead-set on making use of 

Leap ahead an indeterminate amount of years (or is it days?): a despondent Alphie is learning that sanctimonious soft-rock doesn’t sell; Bibi has become a literal howling success (“Speeeeed!”); and America/Berlin has fallen under the despotic, fascist way of BIM and Mr. Boogalow. Beset by state-mandated dancing, compulsory mylar sticker-wearing, and the micromanaging of individual behavior, the country has been transformed into a soul-killing, dystopian glitterscape oddly reminiscent of some six months I spent back in the mid-‘90s working for fitness guru Richard Simmons.

The National BIM Hour of Exercise

The power of love ultimately proves more potent than the power of bad music, and it isn’t long before Bibi starts questioning her fashion choices and Alphie embarks on a quest to rescue his lady love from the evils of multiethnic nonbinary pansexuality. It's at this point, for reasons known only to the drug suppliers of The Apple's creative team, that Alphie and Bibi’s musical odyssey takes an abruptly ecclesiastical turn, complete with superannuated hippies, rapid-growth offspring, and a celestial visitation that made me think Janis Joplin was way ahead of her time when she asked God to buy her that Mercedes Benz.

BIM pop stars Dandi & Pandi (she's the one dressed like Ami Stewart)
Seriously, what's with these names?

Adding further to The Apple's compendium of crazy is a litany of undistinguished pop songs; a Deus ex machina character named Mr. Topps who pops up out of nowhere; future BAFTA-winning actress Miriam Margolyes as a chicken soup-wielding Jewish stereotype; and costumes and sets that evoke memories of the Dolly Parton quote, “It costs a lot of money to look this cheap.”

Yes, every descriptive detail pertaining to The Apple confirms its reputation as a Grade-A, four-star disasterpiece.

BIM Headquarters
Alphie forgets to check his package at the door

Following the success of Tommy (1975), Grease (1978), and 1977’s Saturday Night Fever (not a musical, but its #1 soundtrack album revolutionized the movie marketing tie-in), studios everywhere rushed pop/rock musicals into production. The megabudget flops of The Wiz (1978) and Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1978) signaled a potential shift in public tastes, but by then, the soundtrack-driven musical juggernaut was already too far underway.

1980 alone saw the release of Fame, The Blues Brothers, Can’t Stop the Music, Xanadu, Coal Miner's Daughter, The Jazz Singer, and Popeye. Hit hardest were Can’t Stop the Music and Xanadu, two high-profile musicals that went into production at the height of disco mania and hoped to capture its white-hot, up-to-the-minute urgency. Of course, by the time they hit the screens, both movies looked hopelessly dated and old-fashioned. The Apple (which would have had its work cut out for it no matter the cultural climate) was initially slated for Easter release, giving it the jump on most of the year's other youth-oriented musicals. Alas, The Apple arrived at the very tail-end of the year. By that time, movie musical oversaturation and public impatience with disco, legwarmers, shiny fabrics, and glitter had all reached the point of no return.

Harbinger of Doom: The Apple opened in Los Angeles on November 21st, 1980 at the Paramount Theater on Hollywood Blvd. The same theater where Can't Stop the Music flopped so resoundingly just six months earlier. This newspaper ad promotes the opening day soundtrack giveaway that is said to have resulted in less-than-thrilled patrons hurling the LPs at the screen like Frisbees.

Although I wasn’t all that crazy about its dull poster art and no-name cast, I didn’t want to see The Apple because of my familiarity with Cannon Films. Even before its purchase by Golan-Globus, I associated the studio exclusively with Charles Bronson and schlocky low-budget action movies. Alas, later, when I'd read the flood of terrible reviews The Apple received, it crossed my mind that perhaps I'd missed out on a once-in-a-lifetime "I was there!" moment. The kind of experience cherished by folks who saw the original theatrical releases of legendary fiascoes like The Swarm or Lost Horizon. But mostly, I just felt as though I'd dodged a bullet.

I finally got around to seeing The Apple some 25 years after its release, not long after it had resurfaced on the midnight movie circuit and emerged as a surprise cult hit.

But the circumstances surrounding my watching The Apple for the first time were not the most advantageous for a film this off-the-rails: I was in bed with a particularly nasty bout of the flu when my partner surprised me with a DVD copy of The Apple to cheer me up.

Maybe it was my very real flu-induced fever colliding with the movie’s fever-dream weirdness, but The Apple not only failed to cheer me up, it genuinely made me sick. 

1. Things started out badly when I gave myself a headache from trying to make out if the endlessly-repeated chant in the opening number is “BIM’s on the way,” “BIM’s the only way,” “BIM all the way.” or whatever the fuck.

2. The jewels glued to Shake’s front teeth looked less like glitter rock bling than grossly neglectful dental health, so that kinda turned my stomach.

3. My fluey stomach synced with the film's clumsy choreography and started turning sympathy flips.

4. The script was so rushed, chaotic, and nonsensical that it created the disorienting impression that I had dozed off at intervals, missing pertinent plot points. (I hadn't.)

5. This is a musical that clocks in at only 90 minutes. So why did it feel as long as Barry Lyndon?

6. Did my feeling so lousy at the time ultimately influence my first impression of The Apple? Yes. Was The Apple still pretty lousy without any help from me? Oh, most definitely. 

What's it all about, Alphie?
I hope you like George Gilmour's expression here 'cause it's the only one he's got 

By rights, my flu-viewing experience should have ended my having anything more to do with The Apple. And it was. That is until Christmas 2019 saw the release of a film that threatened to unseat The Apple as The Worst Musical Ever Made: Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cats. 

The critical drubbing those CGI kitties received got me thinking of how it had been 15 years since I last saw The Apple, igniting the nagging question of whether...given how badly I felt...I had really seen the film at all. So, with the added inducement of a recent Blu-ray release, I decided to give The Apple one more try.

I have to admit, it was a considerably better experience. 

The passing of 40 years has been kinder to The Apple than perhaps it deserves. Of course, it’s just as silly as ever, but much of what I once found annoying has been softened through the distancing filter of time. 

I still think the music is pretty terrible, but the songs “BIM,” “Showbizness,” and especially “Speed” actually make me smile (OK, laugh out loud). They may be tacky, but they are also a lot of fun. In fact, the first half of The Apple is actually rather enjoyable. Unfortunately, the second half is bogged down by one too many lugubrious ballads and that weird evangelical turn the story takes.

The musical number "Coming," staged as Pandi's choreographed date-rape of a drugged Alphie,
is not only hilariously crass but takes bad taste to Springtime for Hitler levels

None of the performances gave me a headache the way they did the first time around, although from the start, I thought Grace Kennedy was a little too good for this film (her discomfort in that "Coming" number is palpable) and would have made a fantastic Lucy in the Sky in Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band---a case of going from the frying pan into the fire, I know. And I discovered it's really not possible to dislike Catherine Mary Stewart, coming across as she does like a spunky, well-intentioned understudy shoved at the last moment into the star role.

What emerged clearer on second viewing is just how good Vladek Sheybal is. Playing a character saddled with a name no two individuals in the film ever pronounce the same way twice, Sheybal is the only actor to hit the right over-the-top tone without the effort showing. He reminded me of Karen Black when she began appearing in all those low-rent horror movies. She "got" and understood the weird...she didn't need to strike attitudes.

Vladek Sheybal appeared in the films Casino Royale From Russia With Love,
and Ken Russell's Women in Love and The Boy Friend

I enjoyed The Apple more on the second viewing, but finding out that I don't loathe the film isn't the same as saying that I actually like it. I'm afraid I still don't.
And just why that is, boils down to this: I wouldn't like a John Waters movie in which Donny and Marie triumphed over Divine and Mink Stole. Nor would I like an Auntie Mame in which the Aryans from Darian scare away the free-thinking bohemians.

Playing Alphie's cliche-a-minute Jewish landlady, Miriam Margolyes' character doesn't
have a name, but her performance is so full of ham she should be labeled not kosher

I like my cult movies subversive. Mainstream films always have people who look like Bibi and Alphie triumphing over the forces of evil (i.e., anyone who doesn't look like Bibi and Alphie). What's great about underground films is their anarchic attack on the status quo; they are movies that celebrate the misfits.

They advocate for the outsiders, for the socially shunned, and for the ones society has branded "different" or "strange." In these films, the conformity power balance is upended, and the underdogs of the world...those who don't fit into heteronormative boxes and non-inclusive social structures...are celebrated for their being true to themselves and for their uniqueness.

In The Apple, Alphie's rejection of Boogalow's world feels as much rooted in homophobia and diversity fear as in professional distrust. When I watch Rocky Horror, I relate to Dr. Frank N. Furter and his "unconventional conventionists," not Brad and Janet (who, even as the vapid hero and heroine, are still written with more complexity than Alphie and Bibi).

The Age of Aquarius
Menahem Golan takes a page out of An American Hippie in Israel (1972)

The Apple, for all its visual outrageousness and rock & roll posturing, has always struck me as being staunchly middle-of-the-road and conformist in its worldview. The narrative is anti-fascist, anti-corporate, and anti-capitalist, to be sure. But it never sat well with me how the film subtextually aligns all the interesting, queer, and iconoclastic people in The Apple with negatives (degeneracy, depravity, evil, fascism), while the hetero, white, white-bread hero and heroine are the only symbols of innocence and good.
Much in the way Can't Stop the Music has never been an all-time cult fave for me because of the self-repudiation inherent in its closeted take on The Village People, The Apple is anti-rock and roll (which everybody knows is the great liberator of all souls!) and celebrates conventional blandness too much for my taste.   

Apparently, Hell is a lot like Chippendales on a Friday Night

BONUS MATERIAL

Before they were Dandi & Pandi, Allan Love (he got the "L" out before the film) and Grace Kennedy had professional recording careers. Love, who was most recently in the restaurant business, can be seen in a 1978 musical video HERE. Kennedy, who had her own BBC variety show for several years, pays homage to that other 1980 musical flop Can't Stop the Music HERE. 

Before he was Alphie, Scottish singer George Gilmour (center) fronted the band The Bo-Weavles.

Ray Shell went on to have an extensive career in theater. Seen here (in considerably less makeup than Shake) he originated the role of Rusty in the 1984 London production of Starlight Express. He's also a producer, director, and author (among others, a book on director Spike Lee).

The Apple's lyricist George S. Clinton (l.) and composer Kobi Recht (r.) appear throughout the film as different characters. Co-lyricist Iris Recht appears as the receptionist in the "Showbizness" number.

Copyright © Ken Anderson  2009 - 2020